Local authorities across rural Ireland will be given funding to purchase vacant and derelict sites to repurpose as community spaces.
Up to €400,000 will be available per local authority each year.
The funding aims to revitalise rural towns and villages so they become attractive, vibrant places for people to live and work.
Old bank buildings have been identified as candidates for redevelopment.
Irish Rural Link CEO, Seamus Boland, says rural areas have been in need of these supports for a long time:
"There's a lot of problems in the towns and villages. There's real issues around dereliction, nothing happening, you could take Moate in Westmeath, which is where we're based and a lot of buildings there could do it. And then there's small, closed convents. That was a particular thing I welcomed and particularly wanted to see happening, because there's a lot of buildings coming into the communities but the communities don't have the funds to do anything with. The only thing we might quibble about is we could have looked for more".
